


Heir of Dragons

by AMLark



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Jon Snow is a Targaryen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 00:17:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17090477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMLark/pseuds/AMLark
Summary: When it comes out that Daenerys is barren and Jon is son of Rhaegar, Sansa must provide an heir so the Targaryens can live on.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written very late at night in less than an hour, so I apologize for typos, etc.

It would end as it began: in Winterfell. 

_And with incest_ Bran thought, though he did not share this thought aloud as he watched the Queen’s retinue approach his old home from the ramparts. He shared the knowledge of his cousin’s true birth with only Sam, knowing that he would be the one to tell Jon. That was the thing about his visions, he saw beginnings and endings, it was middles that were tricky things, how his visions came from being unknown to known changed the delivery, the result. There were always options, alternate paths the truth could take, and still be the truth. 

Except now, now there were only two paths.

The long night, or life. 

Bran watched his once-brother ride alongside the Stormborn, and prayed he had chosen the right one. 

…..

 

Sansa wanted to greet Jon in the courtyard, to place her hands on his face, the only part of him not covered in furs, so she could feel the warmth of his skin and know that he was alive and unharmed. 

Instead she waited at the ramparts. It was to appease the Lords of the North, the ones who had heard the rumors which seemed to fly ahead of the Queen’s army on wings faster than any ravens, the rumors that said Jon and Daenerys were near inseparable, that his tent sat cold and empty every night, yet no one questioned where he was. The Lords of the North were wary, but there was an undercurrent of excitement there, and now that enough months had passed that the threat of carrying Ramsey’s child had gone they had turned their gazes to Sansa. 

If Jon became the Queen’s consort, she would hold the key to controlling Winterfell. 

She did not wish to carry that burden again.

…..

Jon had forgotten how it felt to be cold. 

He was a man of Night’s Watch, a son of Winterfell, a Stark in blood if not in name, and yet he felt like a summer lad beneath the icy wind that struck them as they finally gained sight of Winterfell. Too long had he been gone from home, the Lords watched from above, as though he rode in with a peasant and not the last Targaryen Queen. He didn’t miss where Sansa stood among them, though she must have insisted Bran be helped up to the rampart with her.  
_Good girl._

Jon missed her, and it was a sudden pang somewhere deep beneath his ribs to see her. She was as regal as ever, and he didn’t miss her black dress, the deep fur that laced her shoulder. Her red hair looked like blood against the eddies of snow. 

“I thought you would have some words to share about your home,” Daenerys said, her voice smooth and quiet, the one she used only when addressing him. He loved that voice, the way she didn’t hesitate to command him, to tell him exactly what she needed, what she wanted. She never called him _my lord_ and never called him _my king_ , she never addressed him by any name at all, but that voice, it was reserved for him. 

“It is not as striking as Dragonstone, but these walls have held off harsher winds, stronger storms.” Drogon passed overhead, and the shadow covers her face, hiding her reaction from him. “The people here have endured worse than any weather too.” 

She doesn’t miss the way he looks to Sansa at this, the tightening of his hand on the hilt of longclaw. He told her, of Sansa, of his cunning sister who endured more than any woman should, who was sold like chattel and traded like a prize brood mare. Stories upon stories poured out of him when he received her letter, the raven bringing news he didn’t know he was waiting for: Petyr Baelish was dead. 

Sansa’s words were clear and concise. Trial, treason, execution. He had read them aloud to Dany as they huddled beneath the soft silks of her traveling bed, sweat still sticking to their brows when the poor messenger ran in. 

He didn’t read the last line aloud, he had skimmed the words from Sansa three times, mind reeling when Dany asked him what else. He distracted her with a kiss, and another, until kissing was no longer what they were doing, but thoughts of his sister in Winterfell were chased from the Queen’s mind. 

“I see Sansa,” Dany said, again in the voice reserved for him. Hearing his sister’s name on his lovers lip tore through him, breaking his reverie. 

“It’s the Tully hair,” 

“It’s funny how those things change,” Dany absently twists her mare’s hair through her fingers, “They say you have the Stark look, but in a generation or two it may well be that red hair is the trademark of Starks. What a strange idea that families would always look the same.” 

“Yours did,” he said, and immediately he sees the tense lock of her body, the straightening in her spine. He is no stranger to her family’s ways, the brother and sister marriages that Dany herself thought she would be apart of until she was sold to Khal Drogo. For near a millennia the rulers of Westeros had her white-gold hair and violet eyes, but that’s not what haunts her now. 

The last Targaryen. 

Jon has no name, no title to pass on. He always assumed he would not have children, not when he was part of the Night’s watch, and not when he didn’t carry the Stark name. But Daenerys, she is a Queen, with continents beneath her rule, and enemies everywhere. 

And now, she is bedding a King. 

She may have held off the rumors before, but soon her enemies will start to talk, if Daenerys doesn’t produce an heir, if the path of succession isn’t clear they won’t need to revolt. 

They’ll just need her to die. 

…..

Sansa can’t help the memories of Joffrey when the Queen rides through the gate. 

Both are blonde, though this Queen is made of ice, while the Lannisters were of Gold. She can’t shake the unease she feels, like once again she is being sized up for an alliance, and despite years and miles and deaths and murders and husbands, she is back where she started.

She doesn’t realize she is staring at the Queen until Jon’s arms are around her. 

She relaxes then, smoothing each muscle away from tension, as though her body hasn’t quite caught up to what her mind is telling it, and it still thinks she is in danger. 

“You did it,” Jon says, and his lips move her hair where he tucked her beneath his chin, and she doesn’t know what he is talking about, but she could hear those words a thousand times and never grow tired. 

“I did what?” 

He smiles, like this is the funniest thing in the world. 

“Littlefinger,” He pushes her away, sizing her up. The Queen is watching them, and Sansa feels the need to cross her arms over her chest, even though she wants to grab Jons hands and hold them in her own. “The lords, Winterfell. You have been a true Stark.” 

_I am a true Stark,_ She thinks, but it’s the cheap sort of comment she would’ve said years ago, when her rivalry with Jon was petty and cruel. He is King in the North, but that’s not why she keeps the comment to herself. It’s because he is _her King_

And she wants him to know it. 

…..

 

Jon and Daenerys do not take dinner with the guests that night. 

Tyrion suggests a sweep of the grounds, for the Queen’s security. And Daenerys, who usually would never snub and ally acquiesces in quiet fashion, and when Jon offers her the Lord’s quarters she accepts, but she refuses to let him give them up for her. 

They spend the night as they do many others. 

In the morning Dany lies beneath furs, and he tickes her foot where it has slipped into the cold morning air. She stirs, stretching and reaching out only to realize he is standing beside her. 

“I daresay this room is colder than north of the Wall,” She says groggily.

Jon lumps another log on the mantle. 

“Maybe we can have Drogon warm it up.” Her eyes stay closed but she smiles. “I want to go to the Godswood, but Tyrion left a note. The Lords are meeting there to break their fast at noon,” 

“We shall make our appearance then,” she says, even though he already knew this. It is an easy way to let Dany remain Queen, even here when she is no more than muscle and skin and the soft noises that escape when Jon slips back between the sheets to show her who he plans to worship first. 

After he washes hastily, and though the castle bustles with movement it is still dark when he makes his way to the Godswood, the Weirwood tree stretching up into the low hanging clouds in the distance. He sees the two parallel tracks cutting through the snow, and moves to follow them. 

He should’ve known he would never get that far. 

“Jon,” If Daenerys’s voice is filled with commands, hers are songs, light and easy on the wind. He pauses, intent on meeting his brother before giving in and turning. 

“Sansa, you shouldn’t be out here,” 

“Why, because it isn’t proper?” she huffs, coming up to him. She is wearing black again today, a choice he suspect she makes most days, but he can’t help but acknowledge how different the color is on her. On him it was a symbol of his bastard born fate, to toil for the Night’s Watch. On her it looks like armor, sleek and strong, it’s a wonder anyone recognizes them as siblings.  
“I’m not with child, that’s as close to proper as I’ll get for the rest of my life.” 

“Don’t say that,” 

“Jon, I don’t want to be proper. I don’t care what they think.” 

“Don’t you want a Lord, a family?” 

Something darkens in her face at this, and she turns so he can’t see her. “I don’t want to just be the last Stark, if that’s what your asking.” 

“You’re not the last Stark, you have Bran and Arya,” 

“You know neither of them will carry on the name.” She says, “That’s why the Lords are already looking to me, that’s what you being with Dany has done. She might let you be King in the North, but no child of yours will rule here.” 

He knows he shouldn’t say it, knows it is the dearest of secrets, one assassins would kill for, one worth more than a whole chest of gold or army of unsullied, maybe even more than a dragon itself. “She is barren.” 

The wind howls in the silence. 

“How do you know?” Sansa says, and he is relieved she knows as much about the way these things work that he doesn’t need to explain it, but it’s followed by a quick wave of embarrassment. Of course Sansa would know the implications of a barren Queen, every terrible thing that has happened to her stems from the opposite problem, that she is the last who will bear a true heir of Winterfell. 

He doesn’t respond. 

He had hoped, thought that Dany had not let herself open to the possibility, but they took nearly three months coming North with their armies. Not once did he stop visiting her bed for her cycle, but she wasn’t surprised, and she hasn’t rounded with child. 

“What will happen Jon?” 

“If we survive what is to come we will find out.” It’s what he has kept telling himself, but Sansa doesn’t seem satisfied. She worries at her bottom lip with her fingers, and he is reminded once again how young she was when this started, but he can’t deny that she is a woman now, and a beautiful one too. He wants to reach out and press his thumb to her lip, to see what she’ll do. 

If she would lick him or bite him. 

The thought shakes him, and the arrival of Tyrion only makes it worse. 

“The Lords are meeting,” he says, and Jon doesn’t miss the glance he spares for Sansa. Tyrion doesn’t miss anything. 

“I was just going to fetch Bran from the Weirwood,” 

“Sansa dear,” Tyrion says, and if Sansa has any trepidation at being in the same space as her former husband she doesn’t show it. “Would you fetch him?”

She makes her way deeper into the Godswood, and when she turns her hair is laced with snow, a bride of black and white and red. 

It reminds Jon of blood in snow.


	2. Chapter 2

“Jon I really must insist we catch up before you address the lords.” 

“Just tell me what it is, I’m already late as it is,” Sam had intercepted Jon on his return to the keep, but his friend kept glancing to Tyrion as he insisted on speaking to Jon. 

“Things have changed since you left, there are things I’ve learned, with the Maesters.” He kept fidgeting, and Jon wondered what had happened to the confidence Sam gained before leaving for the Citadel, where had it gone? 

“Speak boy, or lose your chance,” Tyrion said, not bothering to slow. 

“I would prefer a word alone,” 

“Is there something you do not wish to share with the Hand of the Queen?” Tyrion rounded. Not for the first time Jon was met with an uneasy feeling when admiring Tyrions’s scarred features. He was a master in snuffing out secrets and using them to his advantage, it was why Dany had elevated him to such a position, how he had not only survived in a society that was out to get him, but thrived. Whatever Sam had to share, he clearly didn’t want Tyrion knowing. 

“Just tell me after we meet with the Lords, Sam,” Jon said, “I’ve kept them waiting too long as it is,” 

Sam looked like he would speak again, but Tyrion lingered in earshot, and he wisely shut his mouth. 

….. 

Daenerys did not like rooms filled with men. 

That’s what this was, a room with only men, where only those of high birth were given a seat at the table. She looked out across those assembled in front of her and saw the same face repeated: pale skin, light eyes, unkempt hair above eyes lined before their years against the harsh northern climate. 

Lady Mormont sat among them, but she was a child really, and Sansa stood by the far door despite a seat being left for her at Dany’s table. The rest were all shades of the same person. 

Except Jon. 

But Jon had never felt like a northerner to her, no he had gone beyond the wall and brought pack something wild with him, had traveled south and felt the warm breeze of the sea. He was more than the lands that he ruled, and she had felt a kinship in him. He was one who could understand the burden that one felt from other’s lives, could share in the weight of what she had carried for so long alone. 

She loved him. 

“We have gathered here today to discuss the threat from beyond the wall” The wind howled through the shutters, the hearth flickering high as though to illustrate the King in the North’s point. “We may have Drogon and Rhaegal, but Viserion died fighting the Night King’s army.” 

The murmurs start here, as she knew they would. Viserion’s loss still felt like a fresh wound, but Dany did not let her pain show on her face. This was war, casualties were to be expected, but no one had seen a dragon in lifetimes, and to realize one could be defeated didn’t just hurt their numbers, it reminded her followers that dragons were mortal. That Daenerys was mortal. 

“How are we to know that the Queen won’t turn on Winterfell after we’ve defeated the threat beyond the wall,” Lord Corwyn interrupted. 

“We don’t even know if we will defeat the White Walkers, and already you question my motives?” Dany said, anger flooding her chest. They could all be dead in a matter of weeks, the people of the North and her army, yet already the men were worrying about what would happen after, planning for her moves before they had even been made. 

“Daenerys will not harm the North, we share a common goal, the safety of the seven kingdoms.” Jon’s voice was severe, but she didn’t miss the look the lord shared with the others gathered. Daenerys, not his Queen, not her majesty, none of her names that held worth. 

The door beside Sansa’s perch opened, and an icy wind followed a man in green and brown pelts. He didn’t move to sit, and no one turned to acknowledge him. 

“You have the word of a Queen,” Daenerys said, “And the word of your King, is that not enough?” 

“Aye,” Lord Cerwyn replied, “We have the word of a Queen and a King, but not the King and Queen.” 

The hush was immediate. Here it was, a question she had known was coming, that threw everything between her and Jon to the wolves. She loved him, but would he tie the North to the Seven Kingdoms, tie the Starks to the Targaryens? Would she? 

These were the questions she asked herself when he wasn’t at her elbow, when the heat of him left her so much colder after he left, when she asked herself what would come next, what would happen if they won. 

Because at this point it was the only option, to win. It was to sit on the throne as Queen, or to die beneath the cold hands of the Night King. 

“If we defeat the long night I, Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, will add Queen in the North to my long list of names.” 

…..

Jon didn’t hear the words until the murmurs start. 

_Queen in the North_

He had been watching the figure that entered and now stood next to Sansa, the way her face had been overtaken by a moment of fear before relaxing into her cool distant look when she recognized whoever it was. She had been speaking to whoever was hidden beneath those pelts, and Jon wished he were the one standing there, anonymous next to the Lady of Winterfell. 

_Queen in the North_

He turned to face Dany. 

His heart beat, with excitement, with fear, but more than that with love. He _loved_ her, and the realization hit him with such force that he nearly choked. She was still gazing at the Lords, as if daring them to say something, but her mouth twitched in a smile, and he knew she saw his expression. 

“And your King will not just be King-consort, but a King in his own right,” She smiled at him now, and it was devilish that smile, it was one he wished to kiss right off her face, to lick and nip until he showed her just what type of King he would be. Still loud enough for those watching them to hear she continued, “Lord Snow, could you be a Dragon and a Wolf?” 

The murmurs stopped a stunned silence echoing in its place. 

“Speaking of Dragons and Wolves,” Said a voice from the back, “I have something you’ll want to hear. You are not Ned Stark’s son” 

…..

Tyrion is not surprised. 

He knew Ned enough to doubt the man’s claim of Jon as his bastard son, had watched how it ate away at Catelyn, and still the noble bastard refused to explain himself, to bend and share the truth of the boy’s parentage with his wife. He never saw anger in Ned, except when someone was a threat to Jon. 

Of course he is Lyanna’s son. 

Tyrion doesn’t even need to hear his next words, and doesn’t, his mind already thinking of how this changes things. He should’ve realized it sooner, should’ve puzzled it out back in the height of summer, when he traveled to the wall with a boy who wasn’t yet a King. 

“Pray tell, sir,” Tyrion’s Queen says, and he is so glad she manages to keep her level voice, even if he recognizes the heat behind her words, “But if Jon is the son of Lyanna, he is still a Stark, still a Bastard, his name would still be Jon Snow. What is the point of this news, other than to sow distrust between the Lords and their Sovereign?” 

Sam tries to speak up, but Jon silences him with a hand. Still he continues “Lord Commander,” 

“I am no longer Lord Commander, Samwell Tarly, I am a King and I expect to be treated as such,”

“My king then,” Sam said, and everyone turned to look at him. Tyrion had only known the man for a few weeks, but even he could tell that this was a way he never acted, Jon’s surprise was written plainly on his face. “Your name isn’t Jon Snow, and you’re not a bastard.” 

Sam places a book in front of Daenerys, and old tomb bound in leather. She frowns down at the page, reading through the text, her delicate finger scratching against the paper. 

“What does my brother have to do with this?” 

Howland had walked up to the front of the room, tracking melting snow and huffing in the strange attire of his lands. He stops in front of where Jon and Dany are both still puzzling through the words in front of them. “We should speak in private,” 

…..

Sansa understands a moment before Tyrion does, and when his eyes seek her out first she is already staring at him. They know what this means, what this changes, even if the rest of the room won’t be able to see beyond the initial outrage that will come. Tyrion stares at her, and she realizes he sees the Queen’s secret, that he will know the only person who could’ve told it to her. 

Jon is a Targaryen.  
Not just by blood, by birth and marriage, by the union of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.

The debates will come later, whether he is the true heir or she, but it doesn’t matter. 

Daenerys can bear no heirs. 

And Jon loves her, Sansa saw it this morning in the Godswood, in the way he looked at her as they rode in. He loves her and he will be true to her, and this makes Sansa a target. 

Before it was a problem, Jon’s relationship with Dany creating an opening for another Lord to cement a hold in Winterfell, now it is a threat. If Jon marries her he is dooming the Targaryen bloodline. There are no cousins, no branches for the Targaryens to seek out--their intermarriages ensured that--so who will hold the closest relation to the King? He is now more Stark than before, Stark and Targaryen, wolf and dragon.

If Jon is a Targaryen she is still his closest kin, no longer a sister but a cousin. One who is conveniently unmarried, and whose future children will be the first relation of a King **from** the north, not of it. 

Sansa does what she thought she was done with: she runs.   
…..

Arya does not immediately know who to follow. 

She wants to hear what Sam has to say, to know what Jon is thinking, but she sees her sisters face, the way she storms out of the hall without so much as a word and knows who needs her now. 

“Where are you going,” She asks when she catches Sansa in the stable. She is holding the lead for her horse though he isn’t saddled, and the storm that has been hovering now howls in full force outside. 

“Anywhere but here,” Sansa says. 

“This is our home Sansa, the last of the Starks are finally all here. Why would you run from this?” 

“I’m not like you Arya, I’m not strong, or dangerous.” And when Sansa turns to her Arya sees the demons that haunt her pool in the shadows of her eyes, the bruises beneath her lashes that speak of too little sleep even in the dark hours of winter. “I wish I was, I do. You are strong and quick and hard, I am none of those things. Don’t you see what this means?”

“It means Jon will be king,”   
“Jon will be King, but not just of the North. The Targaryens had no relations, but now they have us,” Sansa mounts her horse, a crazed look in her eye. 

“Jon wouldn’t do that to you,” Arya says, but even her conviction wavers. He wouldn’t, would he? But then again she didn’t think he would return with a Queen at his side, didn’t believe he would. “You aren’t even saddled, at least speak to him.” 

Sansa looks at her, and Arya knows. Knows what happened to Sansa when Ramsay was here, knows that Sansa will do anything to avoid that fate. 

She doesn’t stop her when she flees. 

…..

The space between them feels farther than oceans, farther than the continents that have separated them before, and it’s no more than the length of a table. 

Jon leans heavily on the wooden table, remembering how it felt to lay on one so similar to this, to feel the life return to his heart. That was less shocking than this. 

“It’s not possible,” Dany--Daenerys says. She can’t be his Dany, shouldn’t be it anymore. But still his heart aches at the sight of her, refusing to acknowledge what his mind knows. 

He is a Targaryen. 

“I would be inclined to agree with you, yer majesty it’s just,” Sam is floundering now under her full attention. Howland Reed seems to notice his distress and steps in. 

“I was there,” 

“Where,” Daenerys snaps. 

“I was at the Tower of Joy, I was there when Lyanna died. She died giving birth to John, died after making Ned promise her he would keep him safe.”

“Rhaegar was dead then, at the trident,” 

“Aye he was dead, yet three of his Kingsguard were with Lyanna.” 

“It was a Kingsguard who killed my Father,” She says. 

“ I grew up with Brandon and Ned and Rob, I knew Lyanna when she lived.” He pauses, as though the memories are dredged from some place he would rather keep locked away. “Lyanna’s brothers never really knew her, never bothered to listen to what she said. Rob even less so. If they had only seen what was obvious to anyone watching I wonder if their would’ve been a war at all. She loved Rhaegar, and he her.” 

“It’s true,” Sam says, “Their marriage was annulled. He disinherited his heirs and Elia.” 

“I have no doubt that Rhaegar loved Lyanna, and she him.” 

Jon watches Daenerys, her iron spine, the way even this news hasn’t broken her. He thinks of the things they’ve done, some no more than hours ago. Does she feel the same way, knowing the blood they share? 

Does he? 

“They loved each other, and it destroyed a dynasty, it killed them both in the end.” She says, finally looking at Jon since the first word Howland spoke. “And all that survived of their love is you,” 

He doesn’t need her to the say it, to point out that they can’t leave even that behind. 

He doesn’t have to say anything though, because that is when Arya bursts in, bringing snow and wind from a storm he hadn’t realized started with her into the small room. 

“It’s Sansa” She says, huffing. “She’s rode out in the storm,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, if you want to drop a comment please do :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! I read every single comment and they really do encourage me to keep posting on a story. I'll be updating as the muse strikes, aiming for once a week with less than 5 chapters.


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